LA Mayhem: Trump’s Reality Show Distraction

While protesters wave flags, Trump waves the Constitution goodbye; hiding a legislative dumpster fire behind troops, tantrums, and the lie that democracy’s biggest threat is... handmade signs.

Guest article by Michael Cohen

So here we go again: 2,000 National Guardsmen, plus L.A. police and ICE agents, now standing shoulder to shoulder in downtown Los Angeles. Not in response to violence. Not in response to any actual threat. But in response to a peaceful protest being sold by President Trump as—get this—an “insurrection.”

Insurrection? Please. The only thing being hanged in L.A. right now are protest banners from overpasses. No gallows. No broken windows. No zip ties or Viking cosplay. No calls to execute the Vice President. What we have here are citizens—yes, actual Americans—holding signs, waving flags, and voicing opposition to a government that’s once again stomping on the Constitution in steel-toed boots. And in response? Trump mobilizes the military and spins up the same toxic fantasy he’s been peddling since January 6th: that dissent is dangerous, and he alone stands between us and the abyss.

Let me tell you what this really is. This isn’t national security. This isn’t law and order. This is a pure, unfiltered, weapons-grade reality show distraction. A re-run of the oldest trick in the Trump playbook: create a crisis, redefine reality, and hope the public is too overwhelmed to notice the man behind the curtain is full of shit.

You want to know what Trump doesn’t want you talking about? His war with Elon Musk. And more importantly, the legislative time bomb under his so-called “Big Beautiful Bill”—a bloated bribe to the billionaire base stuffed with tax breaks, work mandates, and billions for his ego wall—that’s heading for a Senate buzzsaw. Why? Because even his own party is quietly plotting to kill it. They know it’s a disaster. They just don’t want to say it out loud until after the primaries.

So what does Trump do? He manufactures a new headline. Not about his flailing feud with Musk, where the once-loyal tech mogul is now tweeting shade and questioning Trump's stability. Not about the bill that was supposed to be his crown jewel, but is now radioactive on arrival. No; Trump needs a crisis that rallies the base and blurs the failures.

Enter the protest in L.A.—a protest that could’ve come and gone with nothing more than a few viral TikToks and a roundtable on MSNBC. Instead, we’ve got camo-clad soldiers patrolling American streets while Trump screams “insurrection!” from behind his podium like a televangelist with a head injury.

This is authoritarian cosplay. It’s not about immigration. It’s not about safety. It’s about showmanship. It’s about manipulating fear. And most of all, it’s about changing the channel from the political humiliation Trump knows is coming when the Senate inevitably drives a stake through the heart of his Big Beautiful Bill. He can’t handle legislative loss. So he’s engineering emotional spectacle.

And let’s be crystal clear: this protest—however inconvenient to the optics of his fake-tough-guy brand—is entirely peaceful. It’s Americans standing up to a tyrannical policy direction with signs and voices, not bear spray and nooses. If that’s now the definition of “insurrection,” then we’ve officially entered the upside-down.

But Trump doesn’t care. He never has. It’s not about truth; it’s about traction. It’s about what makes a better Fox chyron and what’ll flood Truth Social with rage and glory. That’s what this is. A narrative hijack. A smoke bomb. A bait-and-switch.

And here’s the part I really need people to hear: I’ve seen him pull this exact same stunt before. Hell, I helped write the script once upon a time. You think this deployment of National Guard troops is about keeping people safe? Please. Trump’s idea of safety is a locked door between him and accountability. This is about fear optics, full stop.

Because when the headlines start turning on him—when Elon Musk, the Silicon Valley golden boy, calls him out for being erratic and unhinged, and when the crown jewel immigration bill he promised to “ram through” hits the Senate like a dead pigeon on a windshield—he hits the panic button. And that button is always labeled “immigration.”

It polls well with his base. It lights up the culture war. And most importantly, it lets him flip the narrative from “Trump loses again” to “Trump protects America.”

It’s fiction. But it works.

Until it doesn’t.

And here's the kicker: he’s counting on us forgetting the pattern. That every time he’s in trouble, he conjures a new enemy—immigrants, protesters, billionaires with Twitter accounts—and tells America we should be afraid. He floods the zone with bullshit while the real fire burns behind him.

So don’t be fooled. Don’t let the uniforms and barricades mask what this really is: a performance. A distraction. A desperate man clinging to power by any means, using fear as a fog machine and calling the show “patriotism.”

I said it on MSNBC, and I’ll say it again now: this is a production. This is fake crisis politics. And I’m not just guessing; I’ve lived it.

So while Trump sells fiction, I’ll keep bringing receipts.

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